training Archives - Psychology & Counselling- Therapists in Malvern for Adults, Couples & Children

Clinical Supervision

Dr Abigail — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 11:25:26 +0000

Supervision is a respectful, compassionate private space for a therapist to feel validated and supported

Providing clinical supervision is a very important part of the work we do at Malvern Hills Private Practice. Supportive and thoughtful supervision can enable a therapist to reach their fullest potential and is the foundation for providing good therapy. Dr Abigail Pamich, Clinical Director and Clinical Psychologist, provides clinical supervision by the hour over Skype, Telephone or Face to Face. She adheres to the supervision model of Compassion Focused Therapy – that we learn best when we feel safe, valued and connected.

Dr Abigail has completed the British Psychological Society formal Supervisory training and is an accredited supervisor. She has experience of supervising therapists within the NHS and private sector.

Dr Abigail works from a CBT perspective, particularly Compassion Focused Therapy and has completed the Advanced CFT training by Professor Paul Gilbert.

She has worked in NHS teams in CAMHS, Forensic, Adult Secondary Care, Adolescent Inpatient and Under 12 service.

Dr Abigail has received training in the following modalities. She often draws from these different approaches when providing supervision:

Compassion Focused Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Dialectical Behavioural Therapy
Narrative Therapy
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Solution Focused Therapy
Psychodynamic Therapy
EMDR (recently trained)

Fees are £150 per 1 hour of supervision. Meetings can be arranged monthly, every 6 weeks or ad hoc. Meetings can be face to face, via online or telephone.

For more information please see Dr Abigail’s Portfolio Page.

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Trauma & Hurt

Dr Abigail — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 12:29:25 +0000

An emotionally painful past event - that impacts your present

Trauma can come from adverse childhood events or more recent events. It can be from something horrific and life threatening. Or trauma can come from more day to day experiences like a car accident, bullying or humiliation, or a horrible medical intervention (or watching a loved one being very unwell). Such traumas, if not resolved, can have far-reaching personal consequences.

Trauma can be defined as an experience that is negative and upsetting. This can be from the break up of a relationship, bullying at work, a car accident… anything really that is aversive to you.

Traumatic experiences are often deeply distressing and memories can haunt a traumatised person, whether in unexpected intrusive memories or dreams.

Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is when a person’s alarm system stays switched on after the trauma has passed. The person feels on edge all the time and struggles to function due to the physical side effects. This can have long-standing cognitive, emotional and physical consequences.

Not everyone who has traumatic experiences have PTSD, yet such experiences can still underpin emotional well-being. For example, experiencing bullying at work can be traumatic. It can undermine resilience, knock self esteem and create a fear cycle of people and work itself. This would be considered a trauma and can be treated successfully with therapy by helping you move past this event and take away the emotional pain associated with it.

Therapy has been shown to be extremely effective in helping people heal from trauma.

In our service, we specialise in treating trauma of all kinds. We work with major trauma and PTSD. We also work with more commonplace traumas such as bullying, divorce, death, family breakdown, relationship hurts, abuse, neglect, trauma arising from medical treatment etc.

Some of our team are also trained in EMDR which is extremely helpful in overcoming minor and major trauma.

EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. It is a psychotherapy that has been around since 1987 and has received an abundance of supportive research. It has been shown to be extremely effective in treating trauma (PTSD) and trauma related conditions such as specific fears, anxieties and depression; that are traced back to early painful memories.

It is recommended by the UK’s National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and is offered across the country in NHS mental health services.

How does EMDR work?

Eye movements, similar to those during REM sleep, will be recreated by asking you to watch the therapist’s finger moving backwards and forwards across your visual field, while you recall the painful memory. This utilises the bodies natural ability to process painful memories, mimicking the natural healing process of REM sleep. The same effect can also be achieved with hand tappers.

For more information please see our EMDR page

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Sadness & Depression

Dr Abigail — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 10:09:19 +0000

Treatment and support for different types of low mood

Sadness is an emotion that can be described as being down, blue, sorrowful or mournful, low in energy and maybe tearful. It is often the result of being hurt or experiencing a loss or unmet expectations. Sadness is a natural response to loss. In therapy, sadness has a particular treatment approach.

However depression is very different to sadness, and needs to be treated differently in therapy. Depression is a condition that affects the whole person, emotionally, physically and cognitively. Often when people are depressed they have very negative thoughts about themselves (i.e. I am worthless), about the future (it is hopeless) and about others/ the world. This self hatred is not so often present when sadness is around.

If you are sad we can usually manage to distract, or do something to change our sad mindset – whereas depression can feel like a heavy blanket covering you from head to toe. It can infect your emotions like a virus to the point that you stop feeling anything and live in a vortex of numb detachment. This state is called ‘Anhedonia’. A person with depression will find it very hard to ‘snap out of it’ (despite a desperate desire to feel differently).

Depression can bring a sense of darkness to life, like a black cloud hanging over you. Activities that were once enjoyable hold no interest anymore. You may be more tearful, or angry, have changes in your sleep, eating and energy.

Therapy is about a journey of recovery, of claiming back the real you from depression and building a life of value

In our service we consider the potential the biological, psychological and social triggers for depression, and design your therapy accordingly. For example, stressful life events can sometimes trigger depression. Such things as a marriage break ups, isolation, prolonged work stress, living in an uncaring relationship, neglect or abuse in childhood.

However depression can be triggered by internal physical problems such as poor diet, drugs/ alcohol, excessive stress, hormone issues, lack of certain vitamins/ minerals, Celiac disease, poor sleep, physical illness, ageing brain. It is important that your therapist rules out physical causes for your depression.

Full recovery from depression is possible. Research has demonstrated that a personalised therapeutic approach is extremely powerful in overcoming depression.

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Poor Self Esteem

Dr Abigail — Mon, 05 Feb 2018 10:09:19 +0000

Inner strength and resilience is built on a foundation of good self esteem

Self-esteem refers to how much we value ourselves; it is how we perceive our value to the world and how valuable we think we are to others. Good self esteem impacts our trust in others, our trust in the future, our relationships, our work – almost every single part of our lives.

Low self-esteem can be a result of negative words that have been spoken to you. These words then influenced the foundation of your self-perception. These words may have been spoken by people around you such as a parent, a relationship or by bullies at school or work

Low self-esteem may have developed from receiving hurtful behaviour from another, such as experiencing a withdrawn parent or an unfaithful spouse. Their actions then influenced your perception of how valuable you are.

Feelings of low self-esteem are then perpetuated by negatively comparing yourself to others and frequently criticizing yourself. These negative messages are rarely true, but the thought patterns become so ingrained that you may not notice the frequency with which they occur.

Once self-esteem has been damaged it is possible to repair it. When self-esteem is low is it possible to strengthen it. When self-criticism is high, it is possible to reduce it.

When self-esteem is injured it is actually our perception of ourselves that has been damaged. This perception can be healed in therapy.

Therapy can help you heal from your painful past and begin to rebuild your perceptions to create strong, flexible self-esteem.

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